How To Let Go of Anger and Resentment

0:07Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast, the number one mindset podcast in the entire world. I'm your host Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. If you're out there and you like this podcast, just give us a rating and review however you listen to us. The reason why is because the more positive ratings and reviews we get, the more that those platforms actually show this podcast to people who have never listened to it before. So it allows us to grow and allows to impact more people if you would do that. Today, I'm going to be talking to you about how to let go of your anger and your resentment.

0:39And I'm going to try, hopefully, to be able to shift your perspective on your life, on everything that's ever happened in it, and all of the assholes that may have come along the way at some point in time in your life. Now, why would we want to do this? Why would we not want to just stay mad at somebody who did something to us? And why Why would we not want to just stay mad at all the people so that we can keep our walls up and know, hey, I need to protect myself against this person? Well, the first reason why I think is because if we're being honest, like just let's be real with each other. It's so damn stressful to just hold on to all the anger and resentment.

1:21And some people listening to me right now have been holding on to anger and resentment for most of their life. and they've been holding onto it for so long. It's become a piece of them. They fight for their insecurities. They fight for their anger. Oh, you don't know what they did to me. You have no idea. Right. And it becomes a part of them. Their insecurities, the parts of them that they don't want anymore, they hold onto and they fight for so much. You know, I talk with so many people that are 40, 50, 60 years old, and they're still complaining and blaming other people about something that their, you know, their mother did in 1993.

2:02Oh, I'm this way because, you know, on Christmas day in 1993, my mom did this thing. You're like, dude, that was over 30 years ago. Are you still holding onto it? You know, or their brother was, you know, an asshole and beat them up 20 years ago, whatever it might've been. 20 years ago, and you're still holding onto this thing? He beat you up one time 20 years ago, and you've been beating yourself up every single day since? Think about that for a second. Who's the real bully? Your brother who beat you up 20 years ago? Or you who's been beating yourself up every single day for the past 20 years based off of the way that you've started to perceive yourself because of the way that you were beaten up by your brother?

2:44Maybe you thought that you weren't good enough or you weren't smart enough or you didn't deserve to be accepted or that you don't matter. Who's the real bully? Them for the one time that they did something to you or two times or five times they did something to you, whatever it might have been that happened, or you that continues to carry that event with you. And I realized this can be really hard for people to confront because like I said, it becomes part of our identity. It's like our badge of honor sometimes of, oh yeah, this happened to me. I was screwed over. This thing happened. But for a lot of people listening, to be honest with you, you are the real bully in your life.

3:21You have been way worse to yourself than anybody in your life has been. And when you really understand that and you get that perspective, you can start to see things differently because really all life is about is about seeing things that have happened to you or are happening to you right now from a different perspective than you have been seeing them because it's time to let go. It's time to let go of the things that have happened to you. And, you know, think about this. To say something like, I am this way because of the way that my dad treated me as a kid. If you say that and you really see the perspective, like take yourself out of your own head and let's just look at it as if it was somebody else.

4:03And then somebody else says, I am this way because of the way my dad treated me as a kid. That person is playing the role of the victim. and they've been wearing that role of the victim their entire life. I am this way because of what my dad did. He did this to me. I am playing role of victim. If you play the role of the victim, you're never really in control of your life. You're never really truly, fully in control of your life. Maybe that's why it's been so hard for you to step up and make real lasting changes in your life is because you don't feel like you're in control of your life. You still feel and have the perspective of victim.

4:44And you took that from childhood or teenager, whatever it is that might've happened to you, right? And because you've never put yourself in the driver's seat, you cannot be in full control of your life because you just continue to blame others. You cannot be in control of your life if you continue to blame other people for other things that have happened, right? The things that have happened, they happened. You can't go back and change it now. It is what it is. the only thing that you can do is change your perspective on what has happened. You are either a victim in your life or you are the creator of your life.

5:17And if you say, I am this way because of this person, whatever it might be, then you have decided probably unconsciously that you are going to be the victim in your life. And so with this podcast episode, hopefully you will decide that you're going to stop playing the victim for certain things and you're going to actually be the creator in your life. Think about it this way. One of the things that I love is Wayne Dyer says this really, really well. He gives a great analogy. He speaks about anger and resentment like a snake bite. And one thing that he says is he says there are no justified resentments.

5:48There's no justified resentments. What if your anger towards somebody, your resentment towards somebody was not justified? If you carry around whatever happened, you carry around resentment or you carry around anger about anything or anyone, even the worst person in the world to you, the person that cheated, the kids that bullied you when you were little, your mom, your dad, your brother, sister, whatever it might have been, your ex-husband that did X, Y, Z to you. What if you just flipped your perspective to you have no right to be angry and you have no right to be resentful? Nothing happened.

6:31It happened. It's in the past. It's your job to figure out what to do with it. anger is the acid that burns the vessel. I think it was Mark Twain that said that. Anger is the acid that burns the vessel. By holding onto anger and resentment, you are only hurting yourself. You know, and you've got to think about that. The way that Wayne Dyer says it is that nobody dies from a snake bite. You might listen and be like, well, that's bullshit. Like if somebody got bit by a rattlesnake right now and they didn't get the venom out of the body or get whatever it is they needed, the antivenom, they would die.

7:04Sure. But here's the thing that you have to understand. No one dies from the snake bite. They die from the venom. Once you are bitten, you're bitten. You cannot be unbitten. So it's not the bite that does it. It's the venom that's coursing through your veins that's actually going to kill you. But when you get bit by a snake, you don't sit there on the ground and then get mad at the snake and blame the snake, do you? No. What do you do? your main objective is what do I need to do to get this venom out of my system as soon as possible what do I need to do to get this venom out of my system as quick as I possibly can you don't sit around and go oh well yeah my leg hurts and my leg hurts because of that snake it's that snake's fault that my leg hurts no no you don't care about the blame game at that point in time it's get this venom out of my body now well the snake is that person who quote-unquote did you wrong in some sort of way, the person who cheated on you, whatever it was.

8:02It happened and it cannot unhappen. I don't know if that's a word, but I just made it up. It cannot unhappen. The venom though, so the snake is that person. The venom is the anger and resentment that you choose to hold on to. I say those words very specifically. You choose to hold on to them. It might be unconsciously, but now it is conscious. That is the anger and the venom. It's your choice. that thing that is making you sick, that thing that is holding you back from stepping up your life is the thing that you need to get out of your body. You need to get out of your consciousness. And so you're holding onto this venom and then blaming the snake versus saying, how can I get this venom out of myself as quick as possible?

8:43How can I get this anger and resentment out of my mind, out of my body, out of my consciousness so that I can move on with my life. Think about that for a second. It's really important for you to understand that, right? You want to get rid of the venom. You don't want to blame the snake. And so I'll give you an example of my life. Like I love giving my life as an example, because as I teach these things, I'm talking to you, but I'm also always talking to myself at the same time. And I'm always thinking about my life. So like, for instance, my dad is the one that I could bring into here. If this is your very first podcast episode, you've never heard of me before.

9:20My father was an alcoholic. Parents got divorced when I was 10 years old from him being an alcoholic. He passed away when I was 15 from liver failure and from all of that. And I don't hate my dad. Now, many people have been through a situation where they did have an alcoholic father. They did have alcoholic parents or parents that were drug addicts or whatever it might be. I don't hate my dad. I don't. I love him. And the reason why is because I don't see him as the adult. I see them as the hurt child who didn't understand what he was doing. Because when you do meet an adult, which is pretty much every adult, just FYI, when you do meet any adult, you're basically usually looking at a wounded child in some sort of way that has built protection mechanisms in order to fucking try to get by in our society, which can be kind of crazy, right?

10:06So we develop protection mechanisms, right? My dad's protection mechanisms just happen to be alcohol to numb himself and to numb his feelings from, you know, his father's suicide. And so that's really what it comes down to. And so I don't hate him in any sort of way. And when I meditate every day, I meditate on how grateful I am that my life has gone exactly as it is. And one of the things that I meditate and try to bring gratitude towards as much as possible is all of my challenges. Because using my pain, like I'm grateful for the challenge. I'm grateful for all of the pain that I've had because using my pain for my own healing and trying to heal that pain and my own pain and everything that I have from it and being able to use that healing and teaching that healing to other people through the podcast, through coaching, through everything else that I do has been one of the greatest blessings in my entire life.

10:56So instead of being anger and resentful towards it, I'm grateful for it. Now I could still be blaming him. I could still be pissed off at him. You know, he never taught me how to be a man. He wasn't there for me. He chose alcohol over me. I could take that story. And there's a lot of people that do still have that type of story towards their parents or towards somebody else. And they're blaming and blaming and blaming. But what does that, if I were to say, Hey, you know, I'm still so mad at my dad. He chose alcohol over me. He wasn't there for me. There were times when he said he was going to pick me up and I would sit outside with my fishing pole to go fishing with my dad and he would never show up.

11:34Yeah, that's what happened. It's a fucking reality. But if I'm mad at him for it, what does that do for me? Does it hurt him? It doesn't hurt him. He died 23 years ago. It does nothing to him. It only hurts me. It only hurts me if I continue to hold on to that anger and resentment. And it's the same thing for you. Whatever it is, whatever this event or this person that's popping up in your life that you are still holding your anger and resentment towards, it only hurts you. It only hurts you. You. Not them. You. You. And you continue to hold on to it and make that part of your identity. Don't you get that?

12:19Don't you see how ridiculous it is when you take a step out of it and you're like, why am I doing this to myself? Because once again, as I said, anger is the acid that only burns the vessel. It does nothing for them. Nothing to them. does nothing for you. You've got to just let go of it. Get rid of the venom that's coursing through your veins. Then you've got to learn, if I'm being truly honest, of how to forgive. And I have an entire episode on forgiveness. So you can go back and listen to that episode where I dive really, really deep into the forgiveness and the importance of it and also how to do it.

12:51But forgiveness is not something that you do for someone else. That's what the misconception. I have a friend who was talking about their mom the other day and they were saying, I will never forgive this person. And we were talking about how ridiculous that is. I will never forgive this person. Why? Because it's part of your identity to be the person that was hurt by this person? Because you feel like if you forgive them, that it will then let them off the hook? No, you don't even have to look them in the eyes and say, I forgive you. What you do and what reason why you forgive is you forgive for yourself so you can let go of it.

13:26it's like that phrase um the mountains that you're carrying you were only meant to climb right like we all go through hardships we all have mountains that we have to climb in our lives things that are really hard some people they climb the mountain they go down the other side and they go on about their life some people climb them out and they put it in their backpack and then they bring that thing with them that hard thing becomes part of they become calloused and hard, right? But you forgive someone for you, not for them, so that you can let go of the burden that you've been carrying for so long.

13:57You don't need to go up to the person, look them in the eye and say, hey, I forgive you. That's not what I'm saying. You don't even have to include them if you don't want to. You need to forgive them for your own heart so that you can, I mean, you could close your eyes and you could really feel into it. And it's not going to be a one-time thing, I promise you this. It's a slow release kind of thing is the way I think about it. It's like you've been stressing so much and you're so built up. It's like you got to slowly release and you might have to meditate over this and journal over this multiple times.

14:25But you can close your eyes and you can just start to forgive people. Forgive them for that thing that they did. You can write them a letter if you want to and get very detailed in the letter and then you can burn it. They don't ever even have to know that you forgave them, but you need to learn to let go. Believe me, Everything that happened is perfect. Now, mind you, I don't think that that's going to that's going to be hard for some people to accept. But it doesn't mean that whatever happened to me happened exactly that I wanted. But I personally trust that everything that happens to me, everything that happens to me is actually happening for me.

15:03That's something really interesting to think about is like, OK, yeah, like when I think of the short term and I think of things that are happening right now where I'm like, damn, I really wish this wasn't happening. I've had many moments in my life, but then I fast forward 10 years and I look back on a moment and I go, oh, I can see how it was perfect. I can see how my life has been a perfectly crafted curriculum for me to learn and grow. If I am willing to take a step back when something really hard is happening and ask myself, what am I supposed to learn from this thing? You know who else you need to forgive?

15:37Yep, you need to forgive yourself. Right? You need to forgive yourself. think about that for a second. You know how often you're just beating yourself up for something that you did in the past? How long ago was that? I mean, you have to understand this, that as hard as it is to accept, everyone is always doing the best that they can in the moment that they do something. And so if you screwed something up in the past, you did the best that you could in that moment. How do I know that? Because if there was something, if there was something better that you could have done based off of your current consciousness at that moment, you would have done it right now.

16:12Now, if it happened five years ago, and you're looking back five years older, five years more mature, judging yourself for something to happen five years ago, it's because you have now expanded your consciousness more, you're expanded your knowledge more. Now you can see hindsight's 20, 20. Yeah, I probably should have done that thing, but you can't go back and change it. And so once again, you're, you're blaming the snake. This snake just happens to be you. You're blaming the snake and blaming the snake and blaming the snake versus saying, yeah, I need to, I need to get this out of my body. I need to get this anger and resentment towards myself for something that I quote unquote screwed up.

16:43The idea of screwing up is the crazy part about it too, because you did what you did with the knowledge that you had. You know, if I look back at it, you know, I have a lot of things that I've screwed up in my past. I have relationships that I've screwed up in my past and I can look back and I can resent myself for all of the screw ups that I had in my past. Or I could go, you know what? Yeah, I did screw some stuff up. I was pretty bad, but you know, I learned lessons from those relationships, what I wanted, what I didn't want, what, how I wanted to show up, how I didn't want to show up. And all of that led me to my life, to my wife.

17:16And so if you zoom out 10 or 15 years ago, yeah, that makes sense. It was perfect. And you've have to, I have to learn to start to accept things that have happened to your past and learn to actually start to forgive yourself for things that you have done, for things that you didn't do, because you can never truly move on from something unless you forgive yourself or that person, extract the lesson that you can from it and leave with that lesson and integrate it to become a better version of yourself. In the long run, you can always find perfection in the journey if you're looking from the right perspective.

17:52It all happened exactly what it's supposed to happen. And the reason why you can know that it happened exactly what it's supposed to is because that's what happened. So if you can learn to accept it, stop fighting reality and start fighting your past and let go of your anger and resentment, you'll notice that your path of what you're trying to do becomes so much easier because you're not carrying so much burden and so much weight with yourself. So that is how you start to let go of your anger and resentment. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please do me a massive favor.

18:23Take your phone out right now, share this on your Instagram stories if it impacted you in any sort of way. That is the only way that this podcast really grows is by that and obviously by ratings and reviews and organically being shown. We don't have millions of advertising dollars behind us or anything like this to have this grow. So if you would take your phone out, share it on your stories, that's how people become aware of it. That's how we impact more people's lives. So if you do that, I would greatly, greatly appreciate you for it. And with that, I'm going to leave it the same way I leave you every single episode.

18:52Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.